The Golden Chain

A teacher is a human institution which manifests Godhood.  The spiritual teacher is the link of infinity within two finites.  Truth is infinite.  It cannot be captured in any mental or emotional imagination.  Teaching is infinity.  It is a flow of the same energy and reality.  Therefore, no finite person can teach the Truth.  Through God’s Grace, you may meet someone whom you will love beyond emotion, beyond dedication, whom you love for the sake of love.  You are inspired to obey him, and this opens true selflessness in you. ~ YOGI BHAJAN

THE GOLDEN CHAIN OF KUNDALINI YOGA is the chain of teachers – your teacher, her teacher, his teacher, and so on. When you are teaching Kundalini Yoga this chain forms the channel through which the energy, the wisdom and the protection of the tradition flow to you and through you to your students. It is essential for a teacher of Kundalini Yoga to teach in this chain.

The Golden Link (or Golden Chain) is the law of the soul connected and projected through the mind. If you have faith in your teacher, you shall always be a teacher – you have to learn nothing. The law is that teachers are not trained; teachers are born out of faith, not out of spermatozoa. The energy of teaching is not transferred through physical power, but through the subtle power of the teacher.  When you disconnect yourself from the teacher, you fall as a teacher. A teacher is one who links mentally with the teacher. Guru Ram Das is not away from us.  When we link mentally with him, he comes to our aid exactly as a physical person would, but with much more grace.  ~YOGI BHAJAN

COMMENTARY: It is true that we must study and become skillful in the techniques of kriya and meditation. and that a skillful presentation requires learning and practice. But there were many great teachers who never spoke, or who only taught with insults, or who offended everyone in the tradition they served. These historical people were nonetheless recognized as great teachers. They seemed to violate many of the rules that we are trained to obey.  They were teachers in the true essence of the concept:  they were sandpaper for the ego, a beloved of consciousness; they were someone who by whatever means gave up their ego in an act of love or faith. It was the removal of that barrier that allowed the essential link to the flow of intuition and discipline that we call the Guru.  They obeyed that consciousness and embodied it regardless of the particulars of their personality and training.  The essence of a true teacher is a consciousness that you obey in order to clean out the ego so that intuition, commitment and love can serve the Will.

It is said: “You can pile a donkey with holy scriptures, but it will still be an ass”.  Some students collect volumes of writings, hundreds of techniques, but never deposit their ego – like dirty shoes – at the door of the teacher.  The result is that the door of the heart cannot open.

The search for a trustworthy place of Truth to deposit the ego is fraught with pitfalls and delusions.  That search is a path crowded with dead ends and egomaniacs.  It is by grace and good actions that an opportunity to find a path and to lessen the ego comes to you.

You teach without your individual agenda involved.  Your uniqueness as a person always comes through.  Your capacity to utilize your ego in order to reach the students where they are and to elevate them is also there.  But the power is the Golden Chain.

Tuning into the Golden Chain

The Adi Mantra (Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo)

In Kundalini Yoga, we always start a class or a personal practice with this mantra.  We acknowledge this technology of transference in the form of the Golden Chain or Golden Link by tuning in with the Adi Mantra:  Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo.  The Adi Mantra is the first technology of a Kundalini Yoga student or teacher.  It is a meditation.  It is a state of consciousness.  It is the link between you as a finite personality and you as a flow of the Infinite Consciousness that guides the kundalini energy.  At that moment there must be a merger between you and the teacher; you must deposit your ego and serve for no gain; you must link to the word of the Guru (the Infinite Teacher) to speak beyond the tangles of time and space; and you must project it to the level of the student.  Consciousness and compassion join like left and right hands to elevate all who will hear.

Yogi Bhajan on the Adi Mantra

Anytime you want to manifest a link with spirituality, Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo is the link.  You know when you enter a parking lot, and you cross the line and pull the ticket out?  That is this mantra.  You manifest Infinity through the Grace of Guru Ram Das when you chant this mantra.  The guardian of the Aquarian Age is Guru Ram Das.  When you have lack of faith or a similar thing, you can chant this mantra.  Many of you are going to enter Shakti Pad.  This mantra can help you, with the grace of Guru Ram Das.

Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo is a call.  It is a call which can penetrate through any maya and manifest God and Guru, the Supreme Consciousness.  It is the voucher of the Divine Shakti, the Kundalini.

That is why the fifth Guru, Guru Arjan, the son of Guru Ram Das, chanted Ad Guray Nameh, Jugad Guray Nameh, Sat Guray Nameh, Siri Gur Devay Nameh.  Siri Guru Devay Nameh is the manifestation of Shakti, of the presence of Guru Ram Das.  This may be chanted after the Adi Mantra.

~This is from Chapter 6 of “The Roots of Kundalini Yoga” section of the “The Aquarian Teacher” Textbook by Yogi Bhajan, PhD, Master of Kundalini Yoga